The Role – Project  Management Team - Logistics

The Hiring Circumstance –  This logistics company were poised to win a new contract that would have a massive impact on profits, shareholder returns and job security for the next four years at least. 

The client clearly demonstrated its desire to work with the company by providing a six month window within which to put together the team that would support the contract.  Logistics was becoming big business in the UK .  The knock-on effect was a severe shortage of people with the right level of experience, as all companies in the market were vying to take advantage of the new opportunities.

The Strategy – The HR director was completely against using recruitment agencies on principal, instead preferring to use recruitment advertising.  Following two months of failure, however, the policy was relaxed due to the circumstances.  The stipulation was that the company would not pay fees higher than 10% of salary.

The Consequence – The 10% fee strategy essentially meant using low to mid-level recruitment agencies carrying out file searches of existing candidates.  Furthermore, as the candidates in question where much sought after in the market, those that were located had first been picked over by competitor employers willing to pay market rate fees.

The only way that the skills in question would be secured in time was via a concerted retained search effort, specifically and proactively targeting likely candidates.  The 25-30% fees charged by recruiters with the required contacts and skill-levels were out of the question in the opinion of the policy maker.

The client deadline came and went, the company failed in its bid to demonstrate the six-person project management team and the contract was eventually awarded to a competitor.

The project director placed responsibility for the loss of the contract on the hiring policy. He reported that the cost of the headhunters would have been in the region of £120K.  The loss of the contract cost the company £1.5 billion.

The Cost - £1.5 billion in lost orders

 

 

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